The Writing-Practice Journal

NaNo Prep:Contest Round 3-Antagonist Background Story

Anger Misplaced

          My rage is a tangible object, like fire, which scorched me at a very young age. It may have started with my adopted father's actions or it might have emerged because of my mother's high praises of Ariadne.

         I wasn't even at the school age, then. I must have been sick with the flu or a virus or something, which probably no one had noticed. I was sitting near Pa Hirsh and watching him work. A sudden nausea hit me and I threw up on his work. Pa Hirsh's face turned crimson all the way to his neck and chest.

         "You bastard!" he yelled. "Couldn't you move your head the other way?"

         Then he picked me up and literally threw me out of the back door. On the porch where I fell, I could hear his screaming at my mother.

         "Fiona get back here and clean this mess. I'm ruined. What'll I tell the boss now?

         "Woman, will you move? This is no laughing matter. Stop it. I give you a home, take in your bastard kid, and what do you do? You laugh at my misery, caused by your kid. Did I have any obligation to feed a kid who's someone else's? This is what I get. I'm nice to your kid and the ugly frog messes up my life."

         At that instant, reality hit me. I was not Pa Hirsh's real kid, and that explained many other things I was subjected to. But then who was my real father?

         No matter how often I asked and pleaded for the answer, no one ever told me the truth. Moreover, my mother yelled at me for asking dumb questions. If my real father should not even be mentioned, then who was I?

         On the other hand, Ariadne had two fathers. This happened because, when Ariadne's real father died, Aunt Greta married Clifford Wieland. And both of those men treated Ariadne much better than anyone ever treated me.

         But it wasn't just the fathers that got to me; more like it was my mother. To her, Ariadne had no faults; Ariadne was perfect. "Can't you be a little like her, at least?" my mother told me over and over until my ears fell off.

         Being unloved and picked upon by everyone is the pits, ranking right up there with being murdered in slow doses. And not having lived up to your only parent's expectations has a brutalizing effect. The ego recoils and one's self-image is punctured like a tire that went over some sharp construction debris.

         I admit, Ariadne was prettier than me and she did seem to do everything in a perfect way. But how could I live in the shadow of a perfect person who takes away everything and everyone I ever wanted?

         To top it all up, Ariadne is Aunt Greta's daughter; Aunt Greta, the only person who's been nice to me and the only person I adore. I wished Aunt Greta were my mother. She should be my mother, not Ariadne's.

         And Ariadne now has been acting so hoity toity. She avoids me like I am the plague. Probably after I got back at her in my own way, and many times over.

         The bitch, that Ariadne! She lives in my blood like an insidious disease.